In a brand new interview with the "SixX Strings" radio show, Dave Lombardo (SLAYER, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, MISFITS, DEAD CROSS) lamented the fact that so many younger drummers rely too much on technology to make their performance sound perfect in the studio and in a live situation. Asked what he thinks music used to be like when he was growing up and what we can do better now to make it sound like that, Dave said: "I think what you can do better is to not utilize all these advantages that you have with computers. I mean, if you have Beat Detective [the beat-slicing tool that is part of Pro Tools] and [you wanna] help the drummer, don't use it. Send the drummer to the rehearsal room, work on the shit, work on it with a metronome, then remove the metronome, then put him in the studio and play normal, like a human. Instead of these drummers coming in and recording maybe a few bars. 'Well, can't you fix that? C'mon, you are the engineer. You can fix it.' It's, like, 'No. You fix it.' I would get frustrated. If I was an engineer and a drummer came to me with all these mistakes. 'Oh, can you fix this? Can you move this around? Take this part and change it.' It's, like, 'Really?'" Dave went on to say that he feels sorry "for the musicians that are on this trip of recording something and overproducing and creating something out of nothing. And then they try to go on stage and try to perform it, and they can't," he said. Lombardo also talked about how technological advancements over the course of the last few decades have changed the way people record and listen to music. "I feel that when I was listening to music in the '70s — let's say when I six to ten years old — when you would listen to an album, you [could] tell that there's the bass drum, there's the snare drum and there's the hi-hat," he said. "All right. There's the bass guitar, you've got the electric guitar and then the vocals. So you were able to distinguish the parts, the different instruments, and they were organic, so you could hear what the drummer was doing. Today, let's say in speed metal, thrash metal, whatever, a lot of the drummers are using triggers. So we're listening to that. And drummers that are growing up [now], they don't know that what they're hearing are triggers. So when they get their drum set and they're setting it up, it doesn't sound right [to them]. It's, like, 'No, it sounds right.' So that's what I feel has happened. The listeners' perception of the music is different from what it actually is, and I think it confuses them, it confuses the listener." Lombardo is currently promoting the self-titled debut album from DEAD CROSS, which also features singer Mike Patton (FAITH NO MORE), bassist Justin Pearson (THE LOCUST, RETOX, HEAD WOUND CITY) and guitarist Michael Crain (RETOX, FESTIVAL OF DEAD DEER).
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